Up to and including her last moments, pain and strife marked every phase of Lorraine Pacheco’s life.

Yet the horrific events didn’t stop the blind woman from inviting people into her tiny apartment, pounding on her bongo drums, drawing beautiful pictures, giving advice about fixing car engines and marrying and having a child.

Her pleasant disposition meant there weren’t many strangers on her block, where she lived in an old apartment building near the north end of the old Mile High Stadium.

Pacheco’s family believes on the evening she died in mid May 1997, she invited her killer into her home with her warm smile.

Kirk Mitchell is a general assignment reporter at The Denver Post who focuses on criminal justice stories. He began working at the newspaper in 1998, after writing for newspapers in Mesa, Ariz., and Twin Falls, Idaho, and The Associated Press in Salt Lake City. Mitchell first started writing the Cold Case blog in Fall 2007, in part because Colorado has more than 1,400 unsolved homicides.